GM unveiled it at the Las Vegas motor show. The previous cobalt SS was canned after it failed to meet 2008 emissions standards. This comes as a suprise becuase no one imagined GM would have a F/I replacement until 2009 at the least.


Ecotec 2.0L DI Turbo VVT
2.0L DOHC I-4
Displacement (cu in / cc): 122 / 1998
Bore & stroke (in / mm): 3.39 x 3.39 / 86 x 86
Block material: cast aluminum
Cylinder head material: cast aluminum
Valvetrain: DOHC, 4 valves per cylinder; dual continuous variable valve timing
Ignition system: individual coil-on-plug
Fuel delivery: direct-injection with a variable high-pressure rail and electronic throttle control
Compression ratio: 9.2:1
Horsepower (hp / kW @ rpm): 260 / 194 @ 5300*
Torque (lb-ft / Nm @ rpm): 260 / 353 @ 2000*
Maximum engine speed (rpm): 63 Curb weight (lb / kg): 2975 / 1349
Weight distribution (% front / rear): 60 / 40 00 rpm





Anyway, I think it's time to trade up. It didn't say anything about a limited slip and 260hp/260tq is a fair amount of power going to the front wheels....

Probably just a stop-gap model until Chevy's next compact car (rumored to be Astra-based) comes out.

Anyway, nice engine choice for a stop-gap model. Great bang for the buck, though not my cup of tea.

Looks good, though as always, I'm skeptical of FWD cars with that much hp.

i hate those god damned tail lights.
other than that i like it.

Not too surprising, just an HHR SS drivetrain in an existing model. I did love the way the old Cobalt SS drove; a new engine and transmission would do wonders for it, but an LSD is an absolute necessity.

It's... looking just like the old one and still has FWD. Meh.

(Crosses fingers that the old forged rims are available as options).

...its just so boring... Where's the crazy ass wing? Needs ground effects. Perhaps there will be plently of accessories.

They're always available as an option through craigslist.

The "new" Cobalt SS, as it isn't really redesigned or anything. Just some mechanical bits have been changed.

yet another 200+HP Hothatch... I like it I like it...

according to GM's press release.. "In fact, the Cobalt SS set a lap record for front-drive sport-compact cars at the "'Ring," posting a time of 8:22.85 minutes – besting the previous record by more than 13 seconds."

now.. according to Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N..._cars )

8:22 - Chevy Cobalt SS 2008 2.0 Turbo (Source GM)
8:22 - Nissan Skyline GT-R R32, 280 PS/36 kgf·m/1430 kg, Motoharu Kurosawa (Best Motoring - Video Special DVD Series [The R32 GT-R])
8:22 - BMW M3 E46, 343 PS/1584 kg (sport auto 12/00)
8:22 - BMW M Coupe E36/7, 321 PS/1445 kg (sport auto 10/98)
8:22 - Mercedes CLK 63 AMG (fastest AMG test engineer)
8:24 - Subaru Impreza WRX STI, sport tires (Sport Auto 05/04)
8:25 - Jaguar XKR (Sport Auto)
8:25 - Porsche Cayman S (Sport Auto)
8:25 - Audi RS4 375 hp [citation needed]
8:26 - BMW 335i E92 Coupe, 306 hp (Sport Auto)
8:26 - Nissan 350Z (Sport Auto 10/03)
8:28 - Porsche 911 Carrera (993) (Sport Auto 07/97)
8:28 - BMW M5 E39 (previous model), 400 hp [citation needed]
8:32 - Porsche Boxster S (Sport Auto 12/99)
8:35 - BMW M3 E36 Coupe, 321 hp [citation needed]
8:36 - Opel Astra OPC, 240 PS/1355 kg, Manuel Reuter (mfr., Oct 2005), sport compact record holder
8:37 - Mercedes C32 AMG [citation needed]
8:38 - Honda NSX (sport auto, 08/97)
8:39 - MazdaSpeed 3 Mark Ticehurst
8:39 - Honda S2000 (sport auto 01/00)


um... WHAT!!!

I need more than Wikipedia to prove that right there. Could have been Chevy doing the editing for all we know. Do you have a link to the press release, or footage, or something?

official press release: http://www.autoblog.com/2007/10/28/officia...s-bows-at-sema/

It's not a hatch. It's a coupe. But I know what you were getting at.

Lower it, Fix the goofy ass tailights, and ill consider it. It looks like its ready to go four-wheelin right now.

The aftermarket will take care of that for you So Cal guys. For the rest of us who have "potholes" and "broken pavement," and yes, even "frost heaves," suspension travel and ground clearance are blessings.

I have to be careful not to scrape the front of my stock-suspensioned Jetta when driving into my office's parking lot. No joke. It's easy for So Cal guys to forget how bad roads are in the rest of the nation.

Goddamnit, every time I really start to get behind GM, they do something dumb like put the Twin Towers in a Silverado ad, or claim a Cobalt is faster than a Skyline GTR and a Porsche 911 and an M3. Idiots.

Mitlov...road quality sucks throughout california. We have it at least as bad as everyone else.

And Mitlov, what's so wrong with GM advertising how fast their car actually is? I have no doubt that a 260 HP Cobalt SS can run that sort of lap time at the ring; the last car was a beautifully setup machine and this new one should be the same with 55 more horses.

If you don't mind poor image quality.

Our roads are pretty damn terrible, no joke. Seriously look at the ass-end of that thing, its like 2 feet off the ground.

[rant]
I still can't believe more people didn't speak out about that. C'mon, exploiting a national disaster for the sake of selling trucks to rednecks?!? WTF. I didn't know anybody involved in 9/11, and nobody I know knows anybody involved in 9/11; yet I was still offended by that commercial. That's why I sitll have a hang-up about buying a GM product; I won't give them one penny of my money because of that. Voting in elections doesn't do shit, so I vote with my dollar.
[/rant]

For what its worth, John Heinricy is a badass (with the best job in the world.) And if that N-ring time is correct, dear sweet jesus...

If it can do it, great, say it. I was just having trouble believing that a turbocharged econobox was faster around the Nurburgring than some of the world's best sports cars.

...and it wasn't even just that one ad campaign. Before that, they had an ad campaign which included the slogan "there's no Japanese word for pickup." Whether or not that's true, it's a despicable appeal to jingoism and anti-Japanese sentiment ("remember Pearl Harbor!" blah blah blah) instead of talking at all about the vehicles.

Tasteless, perhaps. Not marketing to you? Most certainly. But was it effective? Yes. And so they win, and we get to be angry.


260hp and a weight advantage on the R32? I'd believe it, even if it is FWD. The old car was pretty hardcore, this seems to be more so. I'm anxious to get that number confirmed, however.

i call B.S. to this claim. Everyone know the fastest FWD car EVAR is the SRT4. It lapped the Nurgurburguring in -8min 22 sec.

Not marketed to me? My wife and I bought a $30,000 Toyota pickup truck this year. How are we NOT in the target market for ads trying to get people to buy GM pickups instead of Toyota pickups?

We actually are the target market for a stripped double-cab Silverado, but if anything, the jingoism of the advertising backfired and left us annoyed at GM.

Didn't your wife insist on a Toyota and nothing else?

She was willing to test-drive the Frontier and the Ridgeline, but she didn't trust the domestics enough to test-drive one. Though it's worth noting that she had considered test-driving the Silverado, and I had encouraged her to look at the Dakota.

I see us as being part of GM's target market with that ad campaign because the domestic pickup market is being eroded, slowly but steadily, by Toyota (Nissan and Honda still just have a tiny proportion of the market, though). GM is now trying to win over Toyota buyers just as much as Ford and Dodge buyers.

I am going to guess for every customer they piss off with the ad, they are going to gain 2 "patriots". Looks like the marketing is working.


* please notice the "" around the word patriot.

It's hard to tell whether or not the marketing is working. The new Silverado is, by most accounts, an awesome truck, and might be selling selling just as well on the vehicle's own merits even if they had cannibals and jihadists singings its praises in the advertisements.

That time is really hard to believe...

The car is still just as ugly and awkward looking as the last!



What?

If she was opposed to the Dakota being a domestic, you could have showed her a true import, the Mitsu Raider.

I was saying that, while the new Silverado may have jingoistic advertising, I'm not sure the ads have anything to do with its strong sales. The sales might be the same no matter what the ads were.

We don't have the jingoistic advertisements here. We have gay cowboys and construction workers driving them through the mud. Of course, not everyone who is a construction worker or a cowboy is gay, just the ones in the commercials.

Well that makes sense, but I'm still confused about the cannibals.

Everybody hates cannibals. Would you buy a car if it was endorsed by face-eating murderers?